


under duress

by TheHiddenPassenger



Category: Star Wars, the clone wars
Genre: Aftermath of battle, Established Relationship, Implied Relationships, M/M, random planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6018034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHiddenPassenger/pseuds/TheHiddenPassenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We find our happiness, Ahsoka, and we take it. Wherever we can grab hold." </p><p>Some moments are brief, some last. Some come at inappropriate times--and with the Jedi Code hanging over everyone's heads, most times are inappropriate. So what happens when Anakin finds out that CC-2224 and Obi-Wan Kenobi have been grabbing little moments of happiness for quite some time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	under duress

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to just publish every little thing I write, in hopes that something will spark a creative fire. Wish me luck--and enjoy. This is fluffy, for the most part with a dash of darkness 'cause lord knows we can't go five minutes without some reprise of the Imperial March humming ominously in the background.

With the smoke finally clearing, it became apparent that the droid outposts on the Separatist-claimed planet of—well no one could remember at that moment—had been well and truly dismantled. The victors were sweaty, panting, bleeding, bruised, broken and exhausted, but no one could mistake the air of triumph that hovered over the battlefield. Droid parts littered the place—Clone parts adorned the battlefield too. Ahsoka did her best to ignore the second bit.

She swallowed hard, spitting dust, searching for Generals Skywalker and Kenobi, both of whom had been sent planetside to lead the final assault on the largest and most heavily-fortified outpost. What they had encountered was more than a few squadrons, unfortunately, but with Jedi at the helm, the battalion made due. Sometimes, it seemed they were always “making due,” but that was the situation in which the war had placed the Republic.

“For a fully-outfitted military, we always seem to be the underdogs, don't we?” She heard a clone gripe as she wandered past. He was supporting his friend, limping toward some form of medical help. She recognized _him_ from Torrent Company, Rex's outfit.

“Have you seen General Skywalker?” Ahsoka asked the pair. One shook his head, the other shrugged and offered a bit of information on Anakin's whereabouts.

“I saw General Kenobi over by that ridge, sir,” the other offered, gesturing to the place he meant. There was a bombed-out husk of a building, ridged by a tree here and there, though nothing like back on Naboo, the planet Ahsoka was learning to love like a second home.

She breathed deep the air of war—or the air of the aftermath, rather and coughed soundly. It stank of grease, smoke and blood. No, this was _not_ like Naboo and she told herself she'd never allow Naboo to _become_ like this. The togruta turned her steps toward the shell of a building, figuring wherever Obi-Wan Kenobi was, Anakin would be nearby.

“Master!” Ahsoka hacked once more, “Master Skywalker! Master Kenobi!”

There was a bit of a shuffling sound from behind a crumbling wall and Anakin's master hopped out, looking almost chipper—and surprised at the very least. He cleared his throat and offered a relatively friendly smile. The man was a model Jedi, cool, calm, condescending (that last one would have been Anakin's assessment) and detached. His mannerism after a battle of such magnitude was to be expected, even envied by a padawan, like Ahsoka.

Right about now, however, he looked—was disheveled the right word? Ginger hair was tousled a bit, though that was to be expected given what he'd probably just done with the deadly weapon which Ahsoka noted was _not_ attached to his belt.

“Yes, young one?” Obi-Wan responded with poise, smoothing his hair. Something about him seemed different to Ahsoka, lively in a way she'd not seen. His demeanor often changed when he was around Anakin, but the togruta girl had always been able to chalk that up to their brotherly relationship. This was different even than that, reminding her more of the way her beloved master acted when he was near Senator Amidala. Then again, who could blame him for _that_?

“General Kenobi, sir, did you need this?” The voice of a clone was distinctive, coming from further behind the wreckage of what now appeared to have been some sort of warehouse or granary. If her hearing had not failed her, Ahsoka could have sworn that it was clone CC-2224, known to the Jedi and his fellows as Cody.

“Ah—Commander Cody, yes, thank you, I...must've misplaced it,” responded Obi-Wan, still lighthearted in tone, turning back around to retrieve that which the clone offered—his lightsaber.

“Oh—Commander Tano, sir!” Cody hopped to attention as soon as he caught sight of Ahsoka. His helmet appeared to have been discarded, though not carelessly. Cody had not lost it in a firefight. His armor showed signs of blaster fire and even Obi-Wan's protective covering had a few burns here and there. They had been in the same fight as Ahsoka, obviously, but the air around them was different, peaceful almost. Satisfied?

“Where's Anakin?” Ahsoka asked, continuing after her initial query, having found Obi-Wan. She was much less formal when speaking to _her_ master's master of Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan wasn't likely to correct her on this.Calmly, the man pointed further behind what had been enemy lines. Anakin's reckless style would always betray him and no one knew him better than Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Thanks,” she responded, tossing a polite wave at Cody and picking her way across the rest of the battlefield. Anakin would turn up, he always did, but while she looked for him, her mind wandered. Cody belonged to Ghost Company, Kenobi's squad, this she knew, the way Captain Rex belonged to hers and Anakin's. She also knew Master Obi-Wan's fondness for the clone; the man respected all life, after all and he _was_ a model Jedi. Ahsoka was not a fool, however; she knew something that went beyond respect when she saw it, but there wasn't time to meddle just now. Compassion was a pillar of the Jedi faith, after all.

The togruta pondered these things, letting them drift to the back of her mind as her initial quest tumbled to the forefront. She asked clone after clone to point her toward her master; Anakin was priority one, after all. She had to be sure he wasn't injured. Ahsoka could feel he wasn't dead, but that was all.

The further she went, however, the fewer organic lifeforms she found, though the droid body count was not decreasing. Blaster burns became lightsaber cuts, angry slices, terrible jabs, and strangely gruesome droid bodies, pulled apart by the Force. Yes, Anakin had gone this way.

Meanwhile, back at the burnt-out husk of a granary, Obi-Wan was securing his lightsaber to his belt and smiling sheepishly at Cody, who had yet to replace his helmet. The clone returned the smile, though it was somewhat wider. Cody's gauntlet-covered hand rested itself gently on Obi-Wan's upper arm.

“What she must think of me,” Obi-Wan shook his head in defeat, brows crinkling at the bridge of his nose. Fretting about such things was useless to the Jedi, though he knew that said “things” seemed to breach the Code quite thoroughly; he supposed that, in this at least, he took after his master, Qui-Gon Jinn. Who was he to judge, however, given his own former padawan's relationship with Senator Amidala—or should he perhaps say Senator Skywalker? Certainly not aloud.

Yes, they all had their secrets. Obi-Wan knew better than to be particularly worried about Ahsoka taking any sort of note about his involvement with the clone commander of his squad. It could have been worse, anyway. She was a good girl and would be a powerful Jedi Master, one day, of this, he was certain.

“Hopefully she admires you, sir,” Cody responded, recognizing a rhetorical question, but electing to ignore that detail. Obi-Wan chuckled, shaking his head.  
“Certainly not,” he chirped. “I've made my share of mistakes, and she'd be best to—”

“You're a great man, General Kenobi,” Cody's voice was full of sudden conviction. “And a near-perfect Jedi, from what I hear. Commander Ahsoka would be wise to imitate you.”

Obi-Wan wasn't one for flattery, shaking his head and shrugging Cody's hand off. He leaned in and laid his mouth on the corner of the clone's.  
“Put your helmet back on; it's time we rejoined the troops,” instructed the Jedi Master, knowing it would look bad on his part to be absent from the scene of such a victory for too long. Anakin would begin to suspect, which was the last thing in the world Obi-Wan needed. He had no doubt his former padawan would put the fear of the Force into anyone he found was “messing with” his master. Cody did as instructed, the grin plastered to his face. Fortunately, the visor of his mask hid it completely. With a spring in their step, Obi-Wan and his clone companion rejoined the aftermath of the battle.

“General Kenobi!” A clone called, “there's a tank suspended, it's halfway in a pit—some kind of sink-hole, can you lift it?”

And off he went, as if his rendezvous with Cody had not even crossed his mind, much less that it actually happened. For his part, the GhostCompany commander was doing a fantastic job rounding his men up and helping survivors. That was part of what Obi-Wan enjoyed about the clones, bred for battle and cleanup, always ready to receive and carry out orders. Sometimes, the middle-aged Jedi Master wondered just how serious Cody _was_ about this whole thing, but now was hardly the time to dwell.

Further on, Ahsoka had located her master and was coaxing him away from the thrashed—what she could only have called—corpse of a super battle droid. Sometimes, his temper got away with him, though he was usually able to hide it. Ahsoka was familiar with this and adjusted her strategy accordingly, hoping to get his mind off his irritation.

“Master, I think we should get back, Rex is probably looking for you,” she attempted. When he didn't stir, she swallowed hard and tried her last tactic, which was not completely on the up and up, but when Anakin was like this, he needed to be pulled back. As his padawan, Ahsoka's duty was to do this; she owed him that much at least. “I ah—I saw Master Obi-Wan with Commander Cody again...”

That snapped Anakin right out of his daze. His lightsaber disengaged and he reflexively placed it on his belt. Eyes like blue fire turned on Ahsoka and he spoke.

“They're always together,” he reminded her—or himself, “Cody is his squad leader, his second in command.”

“Yeah, Master, you're right,” she responded, raising her hands. “I was probably overreacting.”

“We'll see,” Anakin sighed, shoulders releasing their tension. “C'mon, Snips, we've got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

Relieved at her master's relenting, the togruta girl led the way to the entrance. It wasn't the intended entrance, but clearly one Anakin had created himself as evidenced by lightsaber burns around the rim of the opening. She stepped out into the sunset, shielding her eyes to survey the battlefield from afar. It was uglier than she remembered.

“Ahsoka,” this time it was Anakin's turn to pull her back to reality, “what's with the face?”

“It's just… it's so much, Master,” she groaned. “I don't think… I don't know if I can keep doing this. It's sad, you know? No one can just… live and be happy anymore.”

“We find our happiness, Ahsoka,” Anakin responded, voice even, heart thudding as his mind conjured unbidden thoughts of Padmé, “and we take it, wherever we can grab hold. Little moments—like this sunset… with someone you care about, or if you can't be with them, you can think about them. You see something beautiful and it reminds you of them—”

“You're rambling, Skyguy,” Ahsoka pointed out, “but I don't mind. It's… nice.”

The color of the sunset was a deep, bloody orange-red and almost successfully hid Anakin's flushed cheeks from his padawan. She was graceful enough not to mention it, of course and opted instead to head back downhill toward the carnage. She found herself wondering where Barriss Offee was; she and her master, Luminara Unduli had worked alongside Ahsoka and Anakin on many occasions and the togruta recalled thoroughly enjoying Barriss's quiet presence. She was as close to a friend as a Jedi was allowed to have, by the Code. Maybe that was her little moment of happiness. She supposed it would do.

Once they reached the larger mass of clone soldiers who were busy cleaning the place up, Anakin broke off and Ahsoka began to assist moving larger fields of debris. She was distracting herself while he was single-minded in his mission. Locating one man out of a thousand who looked the same was difficult for just about anyone—except perhaps a Jedi, and this one in particular.

“General Skywalker, sir,” a clone noticed Anakin's frantic pace and the way he was darting this way and that. “Is there something I can assist you with?”

“I'm looking for Commander Cody, I need ah… damage reports,” responded Anakin, absently.

“Sir, your squad leader's over there,” said the clone, pointing toward where Rex was helping lift a stretcher into an medivac.

“Ah yeah, well—I'm asking for Master Kenobi; he's busy and such...” Anakin's hand flipped this way and that, indicating business. He was hoping to also convey the hurry he was in, without actually saying it. Obi-Wan was nowhere in sight, but the man had a habit of appearing.

“Oh, well, ah, that way, ah sir,” the clone pointed. And Anakin had his path. He was upon the group Cody was assisting in minutes. With a subtle gesture and a hissed whisper, the Jedi separated the clone he sought, grasping him hard by the upper arm—a strange, unintentional mirror of Cody's own gesture to Obi-Wan earlier—and backed him hard against the rear side of a pillar that had once belonged to a massive temple.

“Sir?” Cody was, to say the least, surprised as Anakin's eyes attempted to burn their way through his helmet.

“Cody, take your helmet off so I can see your face,” demanded the impulsive Jedi. Cody raised both hands and nodded, mumbling a weak _'yes sir_ '. He slid his head protection up and off, tucking it under one arm.

“Is—is something amiss, General?” Cody ventured. It wasn't his place to question orders. As a clone, the man was born and bred to kill, fight, and die for the Republic, which included its generals.

“No, Cody, at least I don't think so,” responded Anakin, slowly, regaining control over his own emotions. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet, sir?” The poor clone was becoming more bewildered with each passing moment.

“Your involvement with Ob—with General Kenobi had better not be some kind of weird power play,” Anakin blurted. "I know you two are... there's something, but he's...very dear to me and I don't want to see him hurt, so if this _is_ just some machismo thing, you'd better tell me now and end it."

Cody was completely blindsided. He stuttered helplessly, shaking his head. How could General Skywalker know about him—or rather, about them? They had been so careful! But Jedi had their tricks and Skywalker was General Kenobi's former padawan; the two were close, as Anakin had just stated. Cody swallowed hard and cleared his throat, searching his mind for words, anything that would have been considered adequate.

His thoughts went from terror, that odd, heart-stopping flow of chilly adrenaline clogging his veins and settling in his gut, to the strangely clarifying heat of rage. How dare General Skywalker insinuate that he was just _using_ General Kenobi as a badge of—of what? Honor? Conquest? Didn't he understand? _Could_ he understand? Of course, none of _this_ came out.

"I love him, sir. You can search my mind if you don't believe me.”

Anakin drew back, watching the clone's earnest brown eyes, his own narrow and sharp, fighting through the post-battle fatigue. After a moment, the intensity died down, just a little.

"No, Cody I won't do that. I don't need to. I can see it on your face."

The clone was relieved beyond all rational thought and stuttered out a weak _'thank you, sir_ ,' or something that sounded rather like it, gaze downward with the embarrassment of having just confessed something to Anakin he'd not even said to Obi-Wan. True to form, the elder Jedi Master did indeed, appear out of nowhere, as was his wont.

"Why didn't you say something sooner, Cody?"

Now, Cody was surrounded by two Jedi a Knight and a High Master, one of whom looked like he might have Force tossed the clone into one of the many ordnance-spawned pits around the battlefield at the slightest slip up or provocation. Anakin was still frightening when calm. Despite having said he didn't need to burrow into the clone's mind to see Cody was not kidding about the man's master, his presence still scared the life out of the clone commander.

“Anakin, please...” Obi-Wan's gentle gesture waved toward the deadly weapon at the fiery Jedi's hip—one he was clutching fiercely even now. Slowly, his hand dropped from the saber and he began to back away.

“Sorry, Master, I...” Anakin shrugged and then turned his gaze on Cody, “ah...Commander Cody, you're—you're a good soldier,” Anakin admitted, biting his lower lip while he thought what to say next, “just...don't mess up.”

“Sir,” Cody snapped to attention as Anakin returned to the aftermath, grasping Obi-Wan's shoulder on the way by, fixing him with a look that said ' _we'll talk about this later'_ and left no room for question. The bearded Jedi nodded, admitting with his own body language that he did, indeed have more than a little explaining to do.

When Anakin was gone, Obi-Wan reached for Cody's hand. The clone allowed it, but did not squeeze back. He had known Anakin would pose the biggest problem and turn himself into a barrier, physical or otherwise, to protect his beloved master. But how could clone trooper CC-2224 have anticipated such… darkness? Such rage, radiating off him?

Surely Obi-Wan had noticed? Or perhaps Cody was imagining things. He'd never felt such fear overtake him, however, not on any battlefield. He was so glad Obi-Wan was his assigned general and not Anakin. How in the world did Rex handle him? But perhaps some questions were best left unasked. He finally squeezed _his_ general's hand back.

“This is, regrettably, as close as we can get for now,” muttered Obi-Wan in his oddly lilting way. The man had a knack for sounding like he was not invested in a situation, even if it pertained directly to him. Cody chalked it up to the Jedi way, but no one sounded quite as convincing as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Yes sir,” Cody responded, nodding. “And...sir?”

“Hm?”

“I...I really meant that—all that stuff I said back there; I wasn't just sayin' it 'cause I was scared,” the clone commander stuttered. Obi-Wan nodded, as if he knew it all, inside and out.

“People often speak more truth when they are frightened than they would otherwise, and you are an honest man,” the Jedi reassured Cody. They were kind words, start to finish, but what struck the commander hardest was the reference to him as a “man” and not a clone.

“I appreciate that, sir,” he mumbled, “but maybe we should be getting back now?”

“I agree,” said Obi-Wan, relinquishing his grasp on Cody's gauntlet. “There is still much work to be done here.”

“Always is, General...there always is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Anakin being vaguely extra with Cody--protective former student is my aesthetic tbh
> 
> May the Force be with you.


End file.
